Beijing, 23 February 2016, (Xinhua) – If, as the Chinese proverb goes, to learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world”,Chinese search engine Baidu has provided the country with a portal to the entire planet at their fingertips. Earlier last month, the Baidu Translate app was given a top national science award for their work advancing automated translations in a rarely seen honor for internet companies.

“It earned the honor for its technological merit and social significance,” Wang Haifeng, vice-president of Baidu, said. “The Baidu Translate App can recognize text, voices and even pictures. For example, travellers can take a photo of the menu and the app will read the menu and do the translation.”

A Chinese doctor tries to communicate with her Mexican patient with the help of Baidu translate app on her smartphone.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Wang has led the research team for Baidu Translate over the past six years. He said the software can now translate 27 languages, currently has 500 million users worldwide and responds to over 100 million translation requirements every day.

It is often used by online retailers to translate product descriptions, saving them the cost of hiring translators.

And it is expanding quickly, taking them only about 11 days to launch a new language, Wang said.

“We collect bilingual data on the Internet, the computer will then study the data automatically and form translation models accordingly,” he said.

But the rapid development of machine translations has raised concerns that translating jobs may soon be endangered and whether learning a second language will soon be useless.

Zou Tingfang, an interpreter involved in legal work, believes automated translations are unlikely to beat translators in the foreseeable future.

“I use software when doing translations, but I never use it when interpreting. Machines still have many limits,” she said. “Language, especially when spoken, is lively and dynamic. Machines cannot handle changes as adequately as human beings. For example, when interpreting, one word can have more than ten meanings depending on the occasion. Machines still cannot precisely distinguish different contexts.”

But automated translations can be accurate for translating languages with fixed context, such as billboards, online games or contracts, she said.

Zhou Min, an English instructor at Nanchang University in Jiangxi province, said, “I am a frequent user of machine translations. The convenience is undeniable, but a machine is a machine. It still cannot respond to variations adequately, since it lacks the flexibility of a human brain.”

Wang Haifeng believes machine and human translators can complement each other. “A translation system can master dozens of languages and jargon in different fields, but good translators can better convey the exquisite beauty of language,” he said.

When analyzing user demand, Wang found the app’s visitors rose sharply at the weekend. “We believe it is because many students are using our product as an aid when doing homework,” he said.

This trend has Yao Ying, a teacher at the Shanghai New Oriental language school, a little worried.

“Many of the students are using translation software. Machine translation has offered them a shortcut, but I am not sure whether it will do any good to their study considering their lack of accuracy.”

“It can only supplement, not substitute, traditional book learning,” she said.

Zhou Min believes that machine translation is also changing people’s attitudes towards language learning, but the enthusiasm of learning will not fade in the era of machine translations.

“For people who need to learn a certain language for occasional use, they will not have to study the language since an app can solve the problem. While for those who are learning languages as a major or planning a long-term stay in a foreign country, machine translation can help them learn more efficiently,” she said.

Zou said even if machine translations become so advanced that they can meet all translation needs in the future, people would still want to gain a working knowledge of different languages.

“People are born with the desire to express and communicate,” she said. “There will always be a need of direct and in-depth communication.”

Peace Through Tourism

How Travel & Tourism Can Help Restore the Balance in the Emerging New World Order

"The travel & tourism buzzword of the 21st century will be the search for balance."

That forecast was made by Imtiaz Muqbil, Executive Editor, Travel Impact Newswire, in the monthly strategic intelligence publication of PATA, the Pacific Asia Travel Association, way back in February 1999. Today, it is proving spot-on as the word "balance" resonates across all industry sectors.

Travel industry conferences seeking a speaker who can offer some unique historical hindsight, unconventional foresight and thought-provoking insight on how to rebuild and restore the balance in Asia Pacific travel & tourism can email Imtiaz Muqbil by clicking here.

There Can Be No Sustainability Without Spirituality

The New World Order will be dominated by a resurgence of spirituality.

Imtiaz Muqbil claims to be the world's only travel journalist to have visited the Holy Spots of all the major world religions -- Lumbhini, Bodhgaya, Varanasi, Nalanda, Jerusalem, Vatican City, Amritsar, Makkah, Madinah, Najaf and Karbala, as well as religious spots such as Angkor Wat, Bagan, Shwedagon Pagoda, Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Temple of The Tooth, Somnath Temple, Samarkand, Bukhara and many other great mosques, shrines, temples and cathedrals worldwide.

Sustainability, ecotourism and health & wellness travel have all become so 'yesterday'. Prepare for the new generation of travel in the New World Order and raise the bar of your next conference, management forum or seminar by hearing Imtiaz Muqbil's thoughts on this unmatched game- and life-changing experience.

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Secrets of Thailand's Tourism Success

Why the Amazing Kingdom is notching up record-breaking arrivals, and what challenges it faces next

The Thai tourism industry has become by far the Kingdom's most successful service sector, one of its leading job-creators and foreign exchange-earners. Behind this success lies a fascinating history of great branding campaigns, policy and regulatory changes, budgetary bunfights, strategic thinking and influence of Royal events.

But this success has now bred a new set of management challenges that may be more difficult to overcome.

Travel Impact Newswire Executive Editor Imtiaz Muqbil has been monitoring the pulse of the Thai travel industry full-time since 1981. Industry conferences and management meetings wishing to benefit from a treasure trove of insights and hindsights on one of the world's great tourism success stories can drop an email here: imtiaz@travel-impact-newswire.com.

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The Rise of the Whistle-Blowers

For 15 years (January 1997-July 2012), Imtiaz Muqbil penned a hard-hitting fortnightly column called “Soul-Searching” in the so-called “newspaper you can trust”. In July 2012, the column was gagged, with no explanation.

Over the years, four columns had explicitly forecast the rise of whistle-blowers -- a prediction now coming 100% true. Read the four columns by clicking on the links below.

Too Bad Your Ad Is Not in This Spot

Space available for unique ads that demonstrate commitment to helping physically-challenged people, building global peace, improving social and cultural cohesion, providing opportunities for the under-privileged, alleviating poverty and combatting global injustice & corruption.

If your product is not meeting any of the above goals, please advertise elsewhere.

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News Vs Noise

A Unique Course for Travel & Tourism Communicators In The Internet Era

By far the vast majority of media communications in the travel industry is boring, banal and bland. The same way it has been for the last 30 years.

Travel Impact Newswire Executive Editor Imtiaz Muqbil has designed a special communications course to help upgrade both the context and the content of industry media material, and make it more interesting, readable and, most important, relevant.